BI= Real-Time Performance Dashboard

Whereas ERP provides the mechanism to capture, tag, and organize data from disparate departments and business units across your organization, BI serves as a performance dashboard that pulls that information together to equip users at all levels to find out, in real time and in terms that they understand, what’s happening within their areas of the business.

How does this translate into tangible business benefits? What exactly do you gain when your ERP offers powerful business intelligence capabilities?

Pull real-time comprehensive reports in less time, without having to wait till month-end

Having to wait till month-end to create reports? If so, how much is the delay in receiving critical performance information costing your company – due to undetected market price fluctuations, lost revenue opportunities, and so forth? What if you could uncover systemic issues at any point during the month, quarter, or whatever period – to make the adjustments you need to hit your numbers? The right BI dashboard integrated with your ERP solution will give you this capability.

Also, how much time does it take your staff to pull comprehensive reports together, especially when they must include data inputted from across the entire enterprise? One company (see case study) cut their company-wide sales report-gathering time from 40 hours, down to two hours, using a BI solution tailored to their operations. That’s a 95-percent reduction in staff hours to create reports, significantly lowering costs associated with report generation and freeing those employees to focus on more productive tasks.

Use BI to compare budgets, forecasts, and plans to actual performance in real-time. Uncover and correct potential business issues before they blow up into major crises that could derail your company.

Find and access the right information – quicker and easier

Organize and display real-time data from your ERP or CRM (customer relationship management) system in a way that makes sense to you—and then search that information according to specific criteria. BI helps provide you with the information your employees need to forecast and make business decisions,  where they can quickly and easily drill down into information and analyze data in multiple ways.

Make informed, confident business decisions

The right business intelligence (BI) solution improves business performance by driving better decision-making throughout your organization. When you’re confident that your insight into corporate data is sound, informed, and complete, you can trust that all your decisions will help you create competitive advantage and achieve corporate objectives.

To learn more about tailoring a robust BI solution for your organization – to transform your business data into the knowledge you need to make informed, confident business decisions – contact ERT Group at 954-825-0888.

Enterprise Resources Technology Group, Inc. (ERT Group) is a technology consulting firm that empowers companies to grow and succeed with business solutions that streamline processes, impove productivity, and squeeze more profit from operations. ERT Group is a Florida Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a 2010 President’s Club member for Microsoft Dynamics – offering Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics ERP.

Does Your ERP Have Enough (Business) Intelligence? is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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But what often creates a rocky path for companies to realize these gains, even when they have implemented the right ERP software, is an “expectations gap” among the various stakeholders within the firm. This gap can exacerbate “turf wars” between departments, slow employee adoption of the new system, and – if not mitigated – derail the project all together.

What happens when there is an “Expectations Gap”?

 Consider these 5 scenarios:

• Although the ERP project endured the rigors of gaining executive endorsement and capital expenditure approval, it lacks a clear agreement on project vision and planning required to ensure ultimate success.
• Ongoing company-wide endorsement, support, and active engagement are disproportionately small in relation to the strength of the justifications that initially “sold” the project to management. 
• The human resources essential to delivering successful project outcomes are too often scarce, or worse, disinterested and unmotivated. They labor under the false impression that a well-integrated business solutions project offers little benefit to their day-to-day experience.
• Overlooking the need to address and mediate cross-department project issues up front creates conflicting expectations of project outcomes, perpetuating classic “turf wars.” 
• Executive decision-makers, falsely believing that their job is done after they authorize procurement, retreat to the sidelines and await a project outcome. Yet, as certain as the winter snow in Minnesota, the project that lacks effective and engaged executive sponsorship is doomed before it begins.

 

 How do you bridge this gap?

 As part of your project plan, define exactly who the stakeholders are. Then think through such questions as:

• How will this project impact their jobs?
• What will be expected of employees in terms of training to use the system?
• What are potential areas for tension or conflict resulting from project deployment?
• Do we have sufficient human resources to fully realize the potential gains from this project?
• What will cultivate a sense of “buy-in” from all stakeholders throughout the organization?
• Will executive management remain engaged after “kick off”?

 

An experienced ERP solutions partner can walk you through these and other questions to help you bridge critical “expectation gap” issues – before they threaten your project’s success.

 For More Information

To learn more about how to bridge the “expectations gaps” specific to your ERP deployment, contact ERT Group at 954-825-0888.

Enterprise Resources Technology Group, Inc. (ERT Group) is a technology consulting firm that empowers companies to grow and succeed with business solutions that streamline processes, improve productivity, and squeeze more profit from operations. ERT Group is a Florida Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a 2010 President’s Club member for Microsoft Dynamics – offering Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics ERP.  

Bridge the ERP “Expectations Gap” is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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Adversely, most of the companies consider this part of an implementation process as a waste of time and money. But experience tells us that when you invest in the preparation, discussions and documentation of your day-to-day operating model, your company ends up saving a lot of headaches from having less system rework that can further increase the cost and duration of the project.

How can the Due Diligence help your organization save money and have a successful ERP system implementation?

After a lot of planning, thinking, and evaluating demos and proof of concepts to decide on which ERP system to choose from, it is important that both teams (Partner and client) fully understand the scope of the project. It will basically be an exchange of valuable information because your partner is the expert on the ERP system but only you know how your business’ processes need to be accommodated to this new system’s functionality. Therefore, this step of the process will help you make decisions to mitigate the risk of a failed implementation.

After this “discovery” phase is completed, both teams will have decisions made that will enable them to work on the next steps of the process knowing which path needs to be taken.

Here are some ideas to get the most benefits out of your due diligence process:

• Document the company current operating model. Draft current and future workflow 
• Make an assessment of your current system functionality and highlight the good and the bad of each item 
• Have the due diligence breakdown into different sessions by subject matter 
• Involve your key employees (future end-users of the new system) on the due diligence discussions that will ensure that everyone’s needs and requirements are on the table 
• Encourage employees who will be part of the due diligence to research on the new system; may be provide them with demos  
• Make emphasis to your partner to document all discussions during due diligence for review and signoff before next step takes process.

To learn more about how your implementation process can be successful, contact ERT Group.

By ERT Group – Florida Microsoft Dynamics Gold Certified Partner

6 Ways to Get the Most Benefits out of Your Due Diligence Process When Choosing New ERP Software is a post from: ERP Software Blog

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